10-Year-Old Won뭪 Pledge Allegiance Until Gays Gain Equality

DeSwiss

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Thu Nov-12-09 01:36 AM
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10-Year-Old Won뭪 Pledge Allegiance Until Gays Gain Equality

Arkansas 10-Year-Old Won뭪 Pledge Allegiance Until Gays Gain Equality

Edge - San Francisco
by Kilian Melloy
Wednesday Nov 11, 2009

Will Phillips (Source:Arkansas Times)

A 10-year-old Arkansas boy name Will Phillips has decided that he cannot in good conscience pledge allegiance to the flag as long as the country for which it stands refuses legal equality to its GLBT citizens.

That stand has brought young Mr. Phillips anti-gay taunts in the lunch room, but admiration from around the country, reports a Nov. 5 Arkansas Times article. The West Fork School District fifth grader clashed with a substitute teacher for his refusal to stand for the pledge, prompting a call to Will뭩 mother, Laura Phillips. When the principal acknowledged that Will has the right to refuse to say the pledge, Ms. Phillips asked that her son receive an apology--a request that the principal declined to honor.

A 1943 Supreme Court decision found that schools may not punish students for refusing to recite the pledge. Objections to compulsory recitation of the pledge arose from the Jehovah뭩 Witnesses on the basis that their religion does not permit expressions of allegiance to anything other than their own religion and to God. The Jehovah뭩 Witnesses lost their first case before the Court in 1940, and reportedly suffered from bias-motivated violence in the aftermath of that case. The Court뭩 1943 decision reversed the earlier finding, and students have had the right to decline saying the pledge since then, although socially such refusal is often met with disapproval.

Such has been the case with Will Phillips� stand, but he hasn뭪 backed down. Laura Phillips told the Arkansas Times that her 10-year-old is "probably more aware of the meaning of the pledge than a lot of adults. He뭩 not just doing it rote recitation. We raised him to be aware of what뭩 right, what뭩 wrong, and what뭩 fair."

http://www.edgesanfrancisco.com/index.php?ch=news&sc=&sc2=&sc3=&id=98884">MORE

- Forty-one years ago, I made the same decision as young Will here. And for the same reason. Then, it was the clear signal that finally hit home, about the farce of saying those words in the wake of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination the evening before.

I was numb all day in school the next day. I'd live to see all my heroes shot down because they aspired toward something bigger than themselves. For others. And I realized that the world didn't deserve them. Not a one. Because this is what America does to its real heroes. It slaughters them, whenever they reach out. Whenever they stand for the truth and fairness. No, ignorant America didn't deserve them at all.

So here's hoping you have much luck and fortitude young Will. They will try to change your mind with sweet words. Words that will change to threats. Then sanctions. But stand your ground. They can't make say them. And the harder they try to make you say them, the more they just expose their words of "freedom and justice" for what they truly are: empty and meaningless.
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DeSwiss

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